Chapter Two
Sarah stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets as she followed Lawson down the path toward the lodge.
She felt like an unruly child being put in a time-out for something they weren’t truly responsible for.
Internally, though, she was reeling. Did she really hear him correctly?
She wasn’t sure. She felt as though she must be reading in to what he’d said the wrong way, but what else could she take away from his words?
A break. Not just a few hours away, a full-blown break. That was what he had suggested. That was what he wanted her to do. No, there was no way… There was just no way she could take that much time away from her work. She would be climbing the walls with boredom.
She had a hard enough time as it was, tossing and turning all night long, replaying the day of Jed’s attack over and over again in her head. Given more time to sit with her thoughts, how was that going to make things any better? Be any easier? She would lose her mind.
Besides, this job was her life. This work, it had been her dream since she was a little girl.
She had known, even then, that it wasn’t going to be easy—known that it was going to demand a lot from her—and she had been prepared for it.
She had been aware, from when she had started her training, that it was going to throw some tough situations at her, and she had told herself that she could handle it.
She was going to be that safe place, that port in a storm for people who needed it.
“Is this about what happened with Jed?” she demanded, hurrying to catch up with Lawson.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and nodded. “I just think you could use some time to process it, that’s all.”
“I don’t…” she protested. “I… It only happened a few months ago. I’m still dealing with it—”
“Yeah, and having some space to dedicate to that might do you some good,” he replied. “Getting away from here will help you clear your mind, get a better perspective on things.”
She shook her head. “No way,” she retorted. “I’m fine. I’m just being hard on myself because I was working with him, and I should have seen there was something going on…”
She trailed off, distinctly aware of how it sounded.
Like she was still stuck in the process of blaming herself.
Hell, if she was, would anyone be surprised?
She was supposed to be able to get a good read on people, not—not let a traitor into their midst, a spy who intended to upend the whole place.
She’d always considered herself an intuitive person who could sense the needs and intentions of others. But after what happened with Jed, she didn’t trust her own intuition as much anymore. She had let down herself and other people by not seeing through Jed sooner.
Even though the warmth of the summer sun was beating down on her face, she couldn’t help but shiver slightly when she thought about everything that had happened.
The look on his face when he had gone into a rage in her office, the way his eyes had darkened and his features had twisted into someone who was unrecognizable.
The charming smile he had used to deceive them had disappeared.
She’d seen plenty of people working through serious issues before, vanishing into dark memories or bad self-belief, but she had never, in her whole time working as a psychologist, seen a transformation so consuming and so terrifying.
And that—that had stuck with her. Knowing that someone could just flip on a dime like that, go crazy in that way, terrified her.
And crazy was the only way she could describe it.
The people she treated, they weren’t crazy, they were just damaged, trying to navigate the reality of what they had been through as best they could.
But Jed? He was deranged…with evil intentions and a darkened soul.
And she prayed she was never going to have to deal with someone like that again.
“I can’t expect myself to go back to normal that quickly.
It takes time,” she continued, and she could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye.
They passed Hannah, who offered Sarah a sympathetic smile.
Sarah hated people looking at her like that, as though she was some kind of victim, in desperate need of help.
She was fine. She just…needed a moment of fresh air and something to eat, that’s all.
“Sarah, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break,” he remarked to her gently. “How many times have you told that to one of your clients?”
She pressed her lips together. Well, she couldn’t argue with that, she supposed.
Damn the man! He was sneaky, using her own methods against her.
And maybe he had a point, but she didn’t want to admit that to him, not so easily, anyway.
He offered her a kind smile, but she still wasn’t reassured.
The words he’d said to her about taking a break were swirling around inside her head and she felt a knot forming in her stomach.
All at once, Lawson stopped in his tracks and reached into his pocket. Checking his phone, he frowned, and glanced over at her.
“I have to take this,” he told her apologetically. “We can talk more about this later, okay? Please make sure you eat something soon and get some fresh air.”
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, though she secretly hoped that he was going to forget they’d had this conversation.
She knew she should take his concern to heart, and truthfully, she probably did need some time off.
She just couldn’t entertain the thought of that right now.
She needed her work and this place to help keep her grounded right now.
She was proud of what she did here, helping people to find their balance, their footing again. She felt that canceling therapy sessions or shifting her clients to someone else in town would do more harm than good. She needed them as much as they needed her right now.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked her, lingering for another moment before he left.
She nodded, forcing a confidence she didn’t quite feel. “I’m fine,” she assured him. “You go. Your text seems important.”
He paused and looked her over, seemingly trying to gauge the truth in her words. Her skin tingled from each place his gaze landed, but then he nodded and headed back inside the lodge. She hoped it wasn’t anything serious. God only knew that this place had been through enough as it was.
“Hey, you want to give me a hand with these flowers?”
Sarah turned to see Hannah sitting back on her heels, a smile on her face.
Sarah couldn’t help but return it. Hannah always had the brightest, bubbliest energy, especially when she was outside working on her flower beds.
She was so proud of the blooms she had managed to bring out this summer, and Sarah could hardly believe that time had passed so quickly as to see them in full bloom like this.
“Is everything alright?” Hannah asked her gently, nodding back up toward the office. Sarah pulled a face. She didn’t really want to talk about it again—she felt raw and exposed enough from Lawson’s comments. She couldn’t really talk about it, anyway, not with Toby being a client.
She knew Hannah had seen how he charged out of her office like his ass was on fire, though he had every right to be upset with her.
The moment his triggers had kicked in and he’d started getting agitated, Sarah had started to panic.
She’d withdrawn into herself and flashed back to Jed.
She hated how scared she’d become when he had started pacing her office floor, clenching his fists at his sides.
She’d felt useless, like all her training had suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke, and she had no clue what to do to calm him down.
Him seeing her frozen and pale, with a shocked look on her face hadn’t helped, either. He’d given her a look of disappointment and then stalked out the door. This was her job, the one thing she was good at, and she’d failed him. Failing herself and the lodge in the process.
“Sorry, it’s a doctor-patient thing. It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Sarah muttered, trying to shut down the conversation before it went any further. She knew Hannah was just trying to help, but it was hard to see it as anything other than prying into her private business.
“I wasn’t talking about the client-thing, Sarah. I meant you. And you matter to me,” Hannah told her, crossing her arms over her chest and hitting her with a serious look. Damn, at times like these, she really reminded Sarah of Lawson.
Hannah and Lawson carried themselves with the same seriousness, like they were ready and willing to take on the world given the chance.
And neither of them was going to let Sarah get out of this situation without sharing the truth of what was going on in her head.
Sarah pulled out the band from her hair and ran her fingers through the curly blond strands.
“I just… I feel like I’ve been floundering lately,” she confessed.
“After what happened with Jed, I mean. I thought… I felt confident in myself and my abilities, and now, it’s like the ground was ripped out from under me and I’ve been sinking in quicksand.
Like the ability to do my job and the security I’ve always known here are suddenly gone, you know? ”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Hannah agreed, her brow furrowed. “It screwed me up for a while, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sarah replied.
Hannah cocked an eyebrow. “Hey, we’re not talking about me right now,” she reminded her. “We’re talking about what’s going on with you. You could take some time off, you know, figure out how to handle it.”
Sarah closed her eyes and sighed. “That’s what Lawson said.
I don’t want to leave my patients like that,” she remarked, shaking her head.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. They need stability and continuity for their treatment to really work, and that’s not going to happen if I just vanish off the face of the earth. ”
“Yeah, but they’re not going to receive proper treatment from you if you’re freaking out all the time, either,” she pointed out.
“I know, I know,” Sarah conceded. “I feel like I’m more like my patients than a therapist right now. Normally, I’m in control, but now, I just don’t know how to handle myself.”
“You should consider seeing a therapist yourself,” Hannah suggested. “You could find someone in town, I’m sure of it—”
Sarah shook her head again. She knew it was likely a good idea, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that she was going to up and leave the lodge high and dry like that.
Plus, what would it say about her and her ability to help others if she ran away?
This was her job and Warrior Peak Sanctuary was her home.
She wasn’t going to be run off by her own insecurities. She’d find a way to deal with them.
“I just need to think about this logically,” she replied. “I have all the skills I need to get this under control, I just have to find a way to implement them. Grounding exercises, breathing control, stuff like that. Techniques I’d suggest to my own clients.”
She could sense the doubt in Hannah’s mind before she even made eye contact with her, but she didn’t want to deal with it right now, not when she had already been dealing with her own traumatic issues.
Hannah was doing much better in her struggles.
Sarah had seen tremendous improvement in her.
She didn’t want to set her back by pulling her into her own mess.
She was telling the truth, after all. She knew exactly how to work through trauma, at least on a technical level.
She had served as the touchstone for so many people who’d come and gone through Warrior Peak’s therapy program.
People who’d relied on her for support and help in their hardest, darkest times.
Why couldn’t she just…do the same for herself now, too?
Maybe she just needed more exercise. Take a look at her diet, make sure she wasn’t getting too much caffeine, which could be putting her on edge.
There were plenty of steps she could take before she would have to look elsewhere for help, and she was determined to do everything she could to focus on them rather than allow herself to get involved with something outside this place.
“So, need help with the flowers?” she asked, nodding to the beds in front of them, trying to change the subject back to Hannah’s initial question.
Hannah glanced down at them, as though she had almost forgotten they were there. “Sure, but I don’t want to interrupt you getting something to eat.”
“No, I’m good. I don’t think I could eat right now, anyway.”
“Then, yeah, I could use some help. But let me know if you change your mind about eating,” she added, handing her the shears.
“You’ve done such a good job with these,” Sarah remarked, shifting the conversation to something else.
The more time she spent focused on her freak-out in Toby’s therapy session earlier, the more likely it was that it would turn into harmful rumination, and she really, really didn’t need that right now.
Hannah brightened up as soon as she mentioned the flowers.
“I know, right?” she replied proudly. “I thought it would take more for them to bloom this first time around, but I guess I have a green thumb.”
“You do,” Sarah agreed, and she stooped down to smell the peonies. Their sweet, rosy perfume filled the air around her, and she closed her eyes, trying to ground herself with a focus on the scent.
See? I’m fine.
She just needed to give herself a little more time, and focus her energy on the grounding and calming techniques she would have prescribed to any of her clients, and she would be back to normal in no time.
At least, that was what she had to keep telling herself. Because the thought of having to leave this place, for anything at all, was more than a little terrifying to her right now.